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OCEAN SOLUTIONS: 2012 International Earth System expert workshop
Leading marine scientists are gathering in Oxford, UK, from the 19th to the 21st March 2012, to propose creative solutions to Ocean problems. Convened by IPSO in partnership with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and its World Commission on Protected Areas, this interactive workshop will produce an updated picture of Ocean management, stressors and impacts, and stimulate the innovative thinking needed to develop a suite of practical recommendations.
This workshop follows the first-of-its-kind event held in March 2011, where IPSO and partners met to determine the net effect of what is already happening to the ocean and what is projected for the future. The groundbreaking outcome of the 2011 workshop documented the cumulative effects of multiple impacts on the Ocean, and stressed that concerted action is urgently needed to avoid a new era of mass Ocean extinctions. The March 2012 workshop will determine the specific directions which this concerted action should take, provide case-studies of marine initiatives that are already working, and generate "outside-of-the-box" ideas for inventive solutions and how to implement them.
The 2012 Workshop is well-timed to promote Ocean solutions in the run-up to the Rio + 20 Earth Summit in June 2012. The outcomes of this unique event will also be promoted to a worldwide public audience to raise awareness of the critical state of the Ocean, and the solutions available to redress it.
A Workshop Report will be published and widely disseminated to policymakers and stakeholders.
Click here for the 2011 Workshop Report and related stories.
The International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) was established by scientists with the aim of saving the Earth and all life on it.
Every sea and ocean on our planet is part of one, global Ocean. This Ocean is like the earth's circulatory system: it performs numerous vital functions which make the planet habitable and we cannot survive without it. Currently, the Ocean is in a critical state of health. If it continues to decline, it will reach a point where it can no longer function effectively and our planet will be unable to sustain the ecosystems that support humankind.
Climate change is the biggest single threat to our Ocean's health, but it's not the only one. If the Ocean is to continue functioning at a level capable of sustaining life as we know it, we need to tackle climate change and alleviate the other pressures we exert upon it.
IPSO's unique consortium of scientists and other Ocean experts — including those from the legal, communications and political arenas — identify the current problems, project the future outcomes of these problems and develop workable solutions to alter the trajectory of degradation.
Everything that IPSO does, it does to preserve our Ocean so that life as we know it can continue.
